Fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr. issued forth the proclamation that he had a dream for a better tomorrow and on the same day President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term, hundreds of Truman State students took to the area with their own dream of a better community.

For the fifth year, the students joined with local service agencies and work sites during their day off in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday, volunteering their time and energy to improve the world around them.

They worked at local day cares, food pantries and city locations like the aquatic center doing cleaning, organizing and other odd jobs from creating MLK-themed bulletin boards to painting of bathrooms to trimming trees for the trail system or socializing with residents at local nursing homes.

In all, the about 250 students signed up for the MLK Collegiate Challenge dedicated about six hours each to the 21 work sites, totaling at least 1,250 hours of community service squeezed into one day.

“It’s so great that you all feel connected to the Kirksville community and like helping out,” Matt Kennedy, Truman’s program adviser for service and leadership, said as he asked the students gathered for the reflection dinner to continue their service with the TruService program and pledge to volunteer an additional 10 hours.

Freshman Ian Kotthoff and his group helped clean at a local pre-school, saying that stepping up on his day off “came naturally.”

“Thought I could help the community and thought, ‘Why not?’” Kotthoff said. “I could have just sat in my room all day or come out and served. Why not?”

Answering that same question, event organizer Allie Esperanza said for her it’s about living her life for others and the special moments such service provides.

“It’s an easier life to live just for yourself, but easy is not always the best,” she said. “I love to see students start to live a life of service and hope it continues in their lives. It’s exciting to see Truman out in the community.”

During the reflection dinner, professor Dana Smith and her theater students performed a segment from their “Rebel Voices” production, bringing to life moments of the civil rights movement, from the sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. to a recitation of King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech given in Oslo in 1964.

“I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life,” Smith recited, “unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.”

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Delivered on the 50th anniversary of the famous “I have a dream” speech, Smith said she chose the Nobel prize acceptance speech because she felt the message of self-preservation and love in the face of sinister global threats still rings true.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality,” Smith recited.